What I wish people knew about Anxiety and Depression

It’s hard to explain anxiety and depression to someone who’s never experienced it.

Sure, everyone has experienced stress before. But anxiety is not the same as your every day stress. Take your every day stress, and times it by one hundred. Welcome to my life of anxiety. Oh, and don’t forget, that is a constant! You will stress about everything, and everyone, every second of the day. Depression is just as fun, except times any sadness that you have felt by one hundred and live with that constantly. It’s definitely not ideal.

What I wish people knew about Anxiety and Depression

1. Confidence isn’t easy – I’ve tried to be confident my whole life. But in the back of my mind, there was always someone judging me, teasing me, laughing at me. What for? I don’t know. That’s just what I feel. AND don’t even get me started on the people who think that because I’m open about my mental illnesses, I’m doing it just to seek attention. Don’t get me wrong, I love attention! I don’t know many people who don’t. But I don’t want attention for this. I want the stigma to stop.

2. Telling me that someone has it harder doesn’t make it easier for me – I’m sure you probably have good intentions by telling me that someone is worse off. Yes, I’m lucky in the sense that I have a roof over my head and can still make a living. By telling me that someone else is worse off, you’re invalidating how I feel which makes me never want to confide in you again.

3. Therapy helps! and sometimes, it doesn’t. – I owe my life to my therapist. I honestly believe that she has saved me more times than I count. Depression isn’t my largest problem anymore, and some people seem to think that because I don’t struggle with it day to day anymore, I’m magically cured. That’s not how it works. Most days, I wake up feeling okay. Today? I did not wake up feeling okay at all. I walked to work, and on my way to work, I cried. I cried non stop. I got to work, and I kept crying. I managed to get myself together to talk to my boss about the work I was doing for the day. But after he left, I cried some more. Do I know why? No. All I know is that today was not a good day for me, and it doesn’t help when you try to tell someone about it and they brush you off. Please don’t do that to someone struggling. It hurts.

4. We can’t control when we have panic attacks – Is it just me or does every panic attack happen at the worst time possible? I wish I could control it, but I can’t. So if it happens at an inconvenient time, please don’t tell us to get our shit together. That’s not how it works.

5. If we’re out and I suddenly disappear, please don’t question it – chances are I feel a panic attack coming on and I will walk away without excusing myself. It’s not personal, and it happens way more often than I would like to admit, but please just let me go. I don’t like being around people when I’m having a panic attack. Because even though I’m the one who needs comforting, I end up comforting everyone else to try and get them to understand.

6. I’m not good enough, ever. – It doesn’t matter how many times you try and convince me that I am. I will always feel like I’m not worthy of happiness. I never feel good enough for anyone or anything.